[adrianm]

I owned the stealth and now own the CA-1a and to me and just my personal opinion the CA-1a is revelatory....especially with the VM-1a which is admittedly expensive but even with the interface box it is truly outstanding..at 2500 dollars with the interface it is again in my personal opinion the best bargain available...to me as good as any option at any price

It will be interesting to compare the CA-1A + interface to the Stealth with HM1 when it gets here. As well as the Elite and D8k Pro LE if they're still around by then.
Adding the VM-1a doesn't make sense for me, I might've just gone X9000 at that point.

 

[flea22]

Has anyone else have a driver fail? I just came back from a month long vacation super keen to listen to my elites and left channel is dead. They where always kept in the case they came in when not in use, very confused and sad.

Anyway still under warranty. But being in Australia its going to take a long time to get them fixed. No music for me for a while. sad

 

[adrianm]

Has anyone else had a driver fail? I just came back from a month long vacation super keen to listen to my elites and left channel is dead. They where always kept in the case they came in when not in use, very confused and sad.

Anyway still under warranty. But being in Australia its going to take a long time to get them fixed. No music for me for a while. sad

you're the second person i've heard about with a failure.

 

[flea22]

you're the second person i've heard about with a failure.

Thanks
Some comfort I'm not the only one!

 

[SteveM324]

Has anyone else have a driver fail? I just came back from a month long vacation super keen to listen to my elites and left channel is dead. They where always kept in the case they came in when not in use, very confused and sad.

Anyway still under warranty. But being in Australia its going to take a long time to get them fixed. No music for me for a while. sad

I assume you’ve done the obvious and swapped left and right cables and the bad driver side remained bad. If the problem moves to the other side, then you have a headphone cable, amp, DAC or interconnect issue. I’ve made the mistake of thinking a bad connection was a bad driver.

 

[flea22]

Thanks, I did this. It's the drivers

 

[SteveM324]

Thanks, I did this. It's the drivers

That’s unfortunate. Good luck and I hope Meze takes care of it in a timely manner.

 

[Roybenz]

Sorry to hear that. You need at least 2 Headphones just in case

 

[Newsee]

Has anyone else have a driver fail? I just came back from a month long vacation super keen to listen to my elites and left channel is dead. They where always kept in the case they came in when not in use, very confused and sad.

Anyway still under warranty. But being in Australia its going to take a long time to get them fixed. No music for me for a while. sad

Not on Elite, on Empyrean. Have you bought directly from Meze or from a local dealer? In the latter case the dealer might have faster response than the post roundtrip to Europe.

 

[Newsee]

Sorry to hear that. You need at least 2 Headphones just in case

Plus two DAPs, two DACs and two amps, just in case. Golden rule. From experience.

 

[ThanatosVI]

Plus two DAPs, two DACs and two amps, just in case. Golden rule. From experience.

Actually a DAP could act as DAC/Amp replacemrnt until the defect unit has been replaced.

 

[gipsy]

Kindly provided by Oratory1990, here is FR plot of Hybrid vs Angled Alcantara pads on mine Elite Chameleon Tungsten to better understand difference of pads.
Both pads are new.
Thanks Oratory1990!

 

[turbofeet]

Kindly provided by Oratory1990, here is FR plot of Hybrid vs Angled Alcantara pads on mine Elite Chameleon Tungsten to better understand difference of pads.
Both pads are new.
Thanks Oratory1990!

Thanks. This confirms what I thought with the Angled pads on the Elite's. It thinned out the bass too much for my liking.

I did like them though but the Hybrid are still the most balanced for me.

I do find the angled pads the most comfortable of all of the choices still and they are superb on the Empyrean (although I also like the Hybrid on the Empys).

 

[gipsy]

Thanks. This confirms what I thought with the Angled pads on the Elite's. It thinned out the bass too much for my liking.

I did like them though but the Hybrid are still the most balanced for me.

I do find the angled pads the most comfortable of all of the choices still and they are superb on the Empyrean (although I also like the Hybrid on the Empys).

For comfort I too find angled alcantara to be more comfortable but hybrid is ok as well.
Here is averaged graph between 3 units oratory1990 did so far:

 

[TheAttorney]

Thanks. This confirms what I thought with the Angled pads on the Elite's. It thinned out the bass too much for my liking.

Well, just to show how subjective reactions can vary, I found the angled pads to have the right amount of clean bass, and the hybrids to be somewhat bloated in comparison.
But then I've often found FR charts to be misleading, especially when (in other circumstances) measurements from different people and test equipment have given conflicting results.

I don't understand why the above angled measurements aren't reflecting what I'm hearing. Two possibilities that spring to mind...

1. Pad positioning is crucial - as per my earlier post. So the best position is different for different pads.
2. The loss of bass is subjectively noticed as a gain in higher frequencies. I..e you raise the entire graph so that bass is at 0.